Burgess was the guest of honour at the Maitland Blacks junior presentation day at the Lorn ground, where he presented the adoring junior blacks with their respective awards, including his own honorary award, the Player of the Year – Luke Burgess Trophy.

The inaugural award went to Hunter, NSW Country and NSW Schoolboys representative Jack Howard, who also did his bit for the Maitland club in 2008, playing five-eighth in the under 18s grand final win, while filling in for the Blacks Colts and making his first grade debut at number 10.

Burgess last played for the Blacks juniors in under 12s in 1995 before moving to Sydney to attend the well-known rugby talent breeding ground of St Josephs College.

Burgess told the Maitland junior on his return trip to the home of Maitland rugby that he was humbled to have an award in his name and that there was such thing as success through persistence.

“I don’t deserve to have an award named after me, I am absolutely blown away by that, but I am honoured all the same,” he said.

“It is really nostalgic to come back here to this ground. Everywhere my rugby takes me, I take this place with me.

“When I started there was no amazing big clubhouse, just an old shed with holes in the cast-iron walls, but it’s great to see that, although the club has grown, the spirit is still here.

“Rugby is an amazing game, keep playing, keep turning up and good things do happen.”

Burgess told the Maitland Mercury ahead of the Wallaby’s spring tour of China and Europe that although the knee injury that cut short his 2008 tri-nations campaign is on the mend, he is no sure-thing to take the top-halfback spot from fellow squad member Sam Cordingley.

“The knee is pretty good at the moment, probably about 70 or 80 per cent. But I just can’t say whether I’ll get on, there is going to be a lot of competition for that spot.”

But if Burgess convinces Wallabies coach Robbie Deans that he is worth the number nine jersey, it could set up halfback showdown that the rugby world probably never anticipated. Record breaking former Wallabies test captain George Gregan is set to line up for the Barbarians in a match at Wembley Stadium in London on December 3.